National Portrait Gallery website: The Art of the Picture Frame, containing: Directory of British picture framemakers, 1610-1950; Collection guides; Articles on artists and their frames; Framemakers; miscellaneous subjects; Research & publications

Rijksmuseum: type ‘lijsten’ into the search box to retrieve 541 examples of real and engraved frames

Sir John Soane’s Museum: the drawings collection is being put online; this includes the drawings of Robert & James Adam, with some designs for frames, decorative ornaments and mouldings

Victoria & Albert Museum: type’frame’ into the Collections search box for quite a lot of picture and other frames (chair frames, window frames, etc.). There is also now a dedicated ‘Frames’ page accessed via the Collections page

AICCM (Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material): website for the framing part of this body (CFSIG, or Conservation Framers’ Special Interest Group) for those actively engaged with all aspects of historic frames and reframing

Fondation Custodia : the Fritz Lugt Collection, Paris: Dutch TV programme with English subtitles. Broadcast March & June 2012 by AVRO on Dutch television. It’s 20 minutes long, and there is a short piece on reframing at the end (plus an original frame near the middle).

Frame Conservation at the Soane Museum, London: This video looks at the work of Museum Conservator Jane Wilkinson conserving the frame of Soane’s original layout for the plan for a triumphal bridge across the Thames, ahead of the re-instatement of the original layout for the staircase recess in Number 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields for the first time since 1918. Published on 2 Aug 2012

Making a Spanish polychrome sculpture: the Getty Museum: this video covers many of the processes (carving, gessoing, gilding and painting) used in producing a carved giltwood picture frame. Uploaded 25 February 2009

Detroit Institute of Arts: In the Frame: conserving the frame of Evangeline discovering her affianced in the hospital. The conservation department acts as the DIA’s own “CSI” team. Highly trained experts painstakingly analyze each work of art and recommend the appropriate treatment. In this episode the DIA’s frame conservator restores the original frame of Evangeline…. Uploaded on 1 Nov 2010

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco: Carving the panelling of the Salon Doré. The woodcarver Adam Thorpe describes the process of restoring this French NeoClassical interior. Gilding the Salon Doré: Natasa Morovic, conservator of frames and gilded surfaces, demonstrates water-gilding as it was used in the Salon Doré.

Versailles: Restauration des dorures du cabinet d’angle du Roi (Restoration of the gilding in the study of Louis XV and XVI). This room, full of beautiful boiseries, hadn’t had the gilding touched since 1954, and its east- and south-facing location had caused significant deterioration.

AVROTROS.Kunst A Dutch television programme broadcasts the reproduction of an 18th century carved giltwood frame with a 3D printer.

Christer Björkman: 1) Carving an oval looking-glass sconce: This NeoClassical frame with its oak leaf wreath is a replica of a Swedish 18th century model. The original piece was made by the Swedish mirror maker Niclas Meunier (1730-1797). He started his own looking-glass factory in 1754 and at 1769 he was awarded the title of Royal Looking-glass Maker. The frame is carved from pine and joined together in the traditional half -&-half style; the lower part is for the brass candleholder. The crest is carved in lime wood. Published on 16 Oct 2013. 2) Renaissance pilasters & entablature: Architectural framing of a wall-niche based on pilasters with base & capital holding a entablature with dentil and egg-&-dart ornaments. The design is the craftsman’s own but is based on classical, Renaissance elements. 3) Water-gilding a French Baroque-style frame: A replica of a French Baroque-style frame made by Stockholms Förgyllning & Bildhuggeri . It has previously been engraved and is here being water-gilded in the traditional way. After the gold leaf has been applied it is then carefully burnished, and in a further stage will be toned to its final patina.

Patrick Damiaens has his own YouTube channel with various woodcarving videos

Esteban Jimenez has a large number of videos of lessons in woodcarving, also on YouTube

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7 Comments to “LINKS”

Dear Lynn
I love your blog…. I spend hrs reading and printing out various pics, my partner calls it frame porn!
I came to making frames very late in life and now have my own workshop in country victoria, australia.
When Michael and I travel we go to galleries and I find the frames always fascinating and take pics of the especial ones….he thinks I’m mad but my customers don’t!
this is just to say thanks, you really have enhanced my knowledge, appreciation and so my business.
regards, molly
Merry Xmas

How kind of you to take the trouble to send such a nice comment! I’m very glad that you enjoy the blog – possibly both of them? – and it is even better if they help in any way.

Taking photos of frames is the best thing that you can do, as this has been done so rarely up until the last fifty years or so, and there is still a great deal of headway to make up. It may appear to be frame porn, but it’s all really in the service of knowledge! – the more images that are published, the better…

I think that you should put this on Facebook or Twitter – shops use frames a lot for window-dressing, so I assume they sometimes borrow them… Also Mike Leigh used some appalling repro frames in the film Mr Turner, so he probably has a lot left over. (Appalling in the sense of Turner’s frames; they’re fine for posters, I should think).